Tuesday, August 18, 2015

What you see on this post is an update to my previous research, which compared the OECD members in terms of per capita residential and industrial electricity consumption. Instead of simply adding new data to the graphs, however, I changed the subject of the comparison: from the OECD countries to the G20 members. In so doing, We can put in the picture the electricity
consumption by important non-OECD countries such as China and India.
(Note: The European Union, which collectively is a member of the G20, is excluded from this analysis for a country-by-country comparison.)

Firstly, the figure below shows how residential sectors in the G20 countries change over the past decade. While North American countries (Canada and the United States) are consuming the most electricity per capita, the rapid growth in power use by Saudi Arabians is noticeable.

Because some countries' data points are too close to distinguish each other, I made a separate graph below that tracks the change in the countries’ rankings over the years (If you really want to see the difference, see the appendix A for the magnified graph for the least-consuming 11 countries.). The country rankings did not show as much change as the residential sector’s per capita electricity consumption.

Secondly, the figure below shows how industrial sectors in the G20 countries change over the latest past decade. Industrial sectors' electricity consumption experienced much change in G20 countries. A majority of the countries reduced industrial electricity use in 2009 due to the global financial crisis, the most famous trigger of which was a bankruptcy protection request filed by Lehman Brothers on September 15, 2008. However, China's industries didn't stop increasing their power consumption. Meanwhile, industrial electricity consumption in South Korea also increased each year for most of the years in the past decade, making the country No.1 by per capita since 2012.

Again, I made a separate graph of their rankings below, in case some countries' data points are too close together (If you really want to see the difference, see the appendix B for the magnified graph for the least-consuming 11 countries.). China's rank rose from 16th in 2003 to 7th in 2013. Saudi Arabia also rose 4 ranks during the same period. In comparison, Japan's rank dropped from 5th down to 9th among G20 countries, presumably because of the nation-wide shut-down of nuclear power plants since the 2011 accident at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant. Argentina, Brazil, Italy and Mexico all stepped down 3 ranks, too.